782 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 281. 



penditure, of a board of trustees, the ma- 

 jority physiciaus, and aa unpaid visiting 

 medical staff. 



The existence of such an institutions de- 

 partment would mean the establishment of a 

 biological station, which would be the means 

 of bringing the greatest benefit to its in- 

 mates and at the same time would be an 

 educational center from which would ema- 

 nate, forprofessional and public information, 

 deductions derived from conscientiously ap- 

 plied scientific observation. 



Affiliated with the Institutions Depart- 

 ment in cities is the Department of Police ; 

 through the police station pass a large pro- 

 portion of the inmates of the city institu- 

 tions and, under police supervision and in- 

 spection, live the defectives with whom the 

 medical profession could, advantageously, 

 be brought into more recognizedly effective 

 contact, either by medical appointments on 

 police commissions or by the creation of 

 medical bureaus as a part of police depart- 

 ments. 



Such bureaus, in addition to rendering 

 the professional services for which private 

 practitioners or contract surgeons are usu- 

 ally emploj'ed, would provide responsible 

 care and carefully trained investigation in 

 cases of accident or violence with corre- 

 spondingly accurate records, and could be 

 made to do valuable correlative work with 

 the institutions, the police and the hospitals. 



It has been said by the trainers of youth 

 that they do not get from the doctor the 

 help expected and needed in the inculcation 

 of those lessons which teach the moral value 

 and moral use of the human body and are 

 the substructure of healthful living, but it 

 is doubtful also if the doctor has as yet had 

 his sufi&cient opportunity. 



The recent endowment in a large univer- 

 sity, of a professorship of hygiene, with the 

 stipulated condition that the appointment 

 shall bear with it the obligation of a closer 

 relationship with the lives of the students, 



is an important and welcome step in this di- 

 rection, and the chair so endowed might be 

 made the center of a Department of Civics. 



Still another relationship, which may be 

 broadened beyond its individual phase, is 

 that between the doctor and the clergyman, 

 and recent experiments based upon a prop- 

 osition that the divinity student should 

 have opportunities to see the practical side 

 of hospital and other institution work under 

 medical guidance, are so promising as to 

 lead to the serious consideration of making 

 this a definite part of regular divinity- 

 school instruction, while the growing ap- 

 preciation of the importance of medical 

 missions, with the understanding that they 

 are to be in the charge of thoroughly edu- 

 cated physicians, and the demands for in- 

 struction in medical ethics in our medical 

 schools show a tendency to approximation 

 in the work of two professions which began 

 originally as one. 



It would be interesting to take up in de- 

 tail other and various channels through, 

 which the doctor, because of the elaboration 

 of modern community life, finds recognized 

 opportunities for his outgo from the unit to 

 the mass ; such, for instance, as questions 

 of water-supply and sewage disposition, 

 food and drug adulterations, asylum and 

 hospital construction, health and quaran- 

 tine regulations, hygiene and physical train- 

 ing and to cite illustrative instances ; but 

 enough has been said to emphasize the fact 

 that his principal value to the community 

 springs from his intimate knowledge of the 

 personal needs of his brother man. 



His sociologic status is the outcome of 

 this distinctive privilege, and his recogni- 

 tion and proper use of it, as the teacher of 

 the individual and as the exponent of the 

 beauty and righteousness of cleanly, whole- 

 some and useful living, make his foremost 

 duty to society. 



Claeenoe John Blake. 



Haevaed Medical School. 



